I only have one New Year’s resolution, and it’s the same I’ve had for six years now:

Make Blake Callahan fall madly,
deeply, and uncontrollably in love with me.

Every year, I write it in big block
letters on the first page of my new journal, and every year, I finish out
December with those some words still taunting me. But not this time. This year,
I’ve decided, I’m really going to make it happen.

“Happy New Year!”

Noise floods through my thoughts.
The party is in full swing around me, hundreds of people crammed into the
amazing beachfront mansion. Music plays so loud I can feel it in my chest, and
everywhere I look, people are flirting and laughing, getting ready for that
midnight kiss.

I check my phone. Just a few minutes
to midnight. My heart beats faster. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it
now. I can see Blake out on the deck, looking illegally
hot in a vintage white T-shirt and jeans that deserve an award for their
services to womankind. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, but
clearly, he only gets more devastating with age. It’s the reason he’s
tipped as the hot new Hollywood star, about to break out in his first big movie
role. But to me, he’ll always be plain old Blake Callahan:
my first love, my unrequited crush.

My best friend’s older brother.

I’ve always been too scared to cross
that line, but tonight is different. Tonight, everything changes. I take a deep breath,
slide the doors open, and step outside.

Blake turns, and I swear, his jaw
drops. I feel another tremor of nerves, but they melt away when I recognize the
familiar look in his eyes, the one I’ve
seen from plenty of guys since my transformation, but never from him.

Play it cool, I remind myself. Easy,
breezy, like he’s been the last
thing on your mind.

I arch an eyebrow. “Good to see you too.”

I sashay over and lean in to kiss
him on both cheeks, the way I learned in Europe. I leave a smudge of scarlet on
his skin, so I reach up and wipe it away. He looks confused. “Sorry, Paris,”I explain, kicking myself for the
familiar gesture.

“Uh, hey,”Blake recovers. “Welcome back. Is it just a vacation
visit?”

“It depends,”I say.

“Uh, depends on what?”Blake asks. His gaze drifts down my
body, all the way to my peep-toe sandals, the ones that usually make me feel
invincible. But now, I feel stripped naked under his blue eyes, my heart
beating so loudly in my chest I swear he can hear it over the muffled sound of
the music inside.

“Me too.”I try to relax. This is Blake, I
remind myself. Not some stranger. I know him. “I missed all of you guys,”I add, thinking of the whole Callahan
family: Tegan, and their two other brothers too. “Europe is a long way from home.”

I take the spot beside him and lean
out to watch the dark shadow of the ocean play along the distant shore. “So what’s your resolution?”I ask, trying to sound flirty.

“I guess… Make some great movies this year,”he smiles. “Not screw up and wind up waiting
tables again to make a living.”

I laugh. “No way. We all knew you had the
talent, it just took the world a little while to catch on.”

“You haven’t seen me act,”Blake retorts, teasing.

“Sure I have,”I remind him. “I remember a certain show you did one
Christmas…”

“No!”Blake bursts out laughing. “God, why would you remind me about
that?”

“Come on,”I tease him, “you were the hunkiest Ebenezer Scrooge
that Santa Monica ever saw.”He dressed up as a
surfer Scrooge and played scenes on the promenade for fifty bucks. His brothers
never shut up about it; we teased him all year.

“Please tell me you don’t have
photos, the tabloids would go crazy,” he groans.

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“I
knew I could count on you.” Blake smiles, and I’m hit all over again with the force of
him: that chiseled, handsome face, the smile, those magnetic blue eyes that
always belonged on a movie screen. I feel the same flip in my stomach I felt
the day we first met; time and distance have done nothing to lessen his effect
on me.

I think I see something shift in his
expression, a glimpse of desire,
but it must be wishful thinking, because he turns away.

“Then I guess we’ll have to pass the time.”I take a deep breath, gathering all my
courage, and then I reach up on my tiptoes and press my lips against his.

“Nine! Eight! Seven!…”

The voices fade away as I fall into
the kiss. Blake’s mouth is warm,
and I can taste the bourbon on his lips, feel the faint scrape of stubble on
his jaw.

This is it. I’m finally kissing him.

But then I realize, Blake is frozen
in place. He’s not kissing me
back—but he hasn’t pulled away either.

I loop my arms determinedly around
his neck and pull his body down against mine. As if it was the signal he was
waiting for, Blake suddenly sweeps me into his arms. He spins me around,
pushing me back against the railings as he kisses me hard and deep, and I come
undone.

God… This is what I dreamed about, all
those years of innocent fantasy. I must have played this moment a hundred times
over in my mind, but nothing is as sweet as the feel of his lips claiming mine,
the heat and desire blazing to life throughout my whole body.

He eases my lips apart and sinks his
tongue deep into my mouth. I moan against him, arching up to press closer
against his body. I can feel the taut muscle through his clothes, the gorgeous
planes of his shoulders and back. His hands slide over my body, cupping my ass
and molding
me to him, until there’s not an inch of
space between us. And all the while, his mouth is driving me crazy, teasing and
demanding, his tongue sliding hotly against mine, igniting a fire in my
bloodstream that spirals low between my thighs.

The sound of fireworks cuts through
the haze. I pull away, breathless. Bursts of glitter and stardust light up
across the bay, and there’s the sound of
cheering inside. For a moment, I feel like the universe is celebrating our
kiss, then I realize we kissed our way into the New Year.

I turn on my heel, and quickly duck
back into the house before I can ruin the moment. But just as quickly, my joy fades. Because
now that I know there’s something between
us, my feelings aren’t so safe anymore.

Loving him could destroy my
friendships, my sense of family—everything that’s important to me in the world. Once
we cross that line, there’s no going back.

So
do I take that risk?

Author Bio

Melody Grace is the New York Times bestselling author of the
Beachwood Bay series. A small-town girl turned SoCal beach lover, after
spending her life with her nose in a book, she decided it was time she wrote
one herself. She loves steamy romance novels, happily-ever-afters, and lusting
after fictional menfolk. She lives in LA with her two kittens, Bucky Barnes and
Steve Rogers.